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The Work-Life Balance Conversation We Need to Be Having

Faced with 24/7 connectivity, setting expectations and boundaries may be more important than ever to employers and employees. By Sarah DiGiulioMedically Reviewed by Allison Young, MDReviewed: July 27, 2021Medically ReviewedWe can change the culture, experts say. But it's going to take work from both the top and the bottom to do it.Katie Edwards/Getty ImagesBalancing the demands of our work and personal lives is a different task today than it was in decades past. And the global COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the paradigm even further, turning so many office workers into remote workers virtually overnight. Some have found it easier to make time for both work and nonwork demands, fitting a workout in over a lunch hour or having time for family dinners thanks to not having a commute. For others, when work came into our living rooms, bedrooms, and other makeshift home offices, it’s felt like the work days never actually end. And while some offices have plans to bring employees back full-time and other companies are navigating new flexible schedule options, the conversation around work-life balance seems to be as relevant as ever. RELATED: How to Cope With Work-From-Home Burnout

When Did We Start Talking About Work-Life Balance Anyway

The concept isn’t new. Psychologists and productivity experts have been studying it for decades to better understand what actually makes people happy, so that they can improve work environments and overall mental health. “You can overload people if the requirements they have from one role, such as one at work, conflict with the demands of another role, such as that of a parent,” says Jeffrey Pfeffer, PhD, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University Graduate School of Business in California and author of the book Dying for a Paycheck. The idea is to live in a way that we feel productive and not burned out at work, and that we have a sense of fulfillment at home and in our personal lives, says Christine Carter, PhD, a senior leader at BetterUp and a sociologist and senior fellow at the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California in Berkeley, who studies happiness and productivity. The difference today, Dr. Pfeffer and Dr. Carter agree, is that the overload is more widespread — and worse. Just because you can work anytime from anywhere doesn’t mean that you should work all the time, everywhere. It’s the familiar phenomenon of technology tethering us to work 24/7, combined with our failure to set expectations and boundaries. “People need predictable time off,” Carter says. “We need basic boundaries so that work doesn’t seep into every waking minute — and sometimes into our sleep.” Employees as well as employers have not taken that step back, Carter says, first, to acknowledge that everything is different thanks to the technological changes of the past few decades having massively shifted the way we work; and second, to figure out how to adjust to the sea change.

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The Problem Work Is Everywhere

There used to be a separation between work life and personal life. There were the hours you worked and the hours you didn’t work; an office for work and space where you didn’t work. Today, many of us have the ability to be constantly connected to work, says Carter, who wrote The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less. “It’s amplified now. It was a problem pre-COVID, but right now it’s even more intense.” And for most people it’s work that creeps into personal time much more than personal time creeping into work. A lot of people don’t necessarily have the flexibility during office time to make their personal lives the priority without disrupting office norms (or facing consequences from employers), Carter says. Yet many of us do allow work direct messaging alerts, emails, and smartphone notifications to interrupt our personal lives. “Balance implies fifty-fifty,” she says. More people working from home since the start of COVID-19 has not necessarily, yet, improved the lack of balance. In a study that analyzed de-identified, aggregated meeting and email data from more than three million workers from 21,000 companies around the globe, data showed: Compared with the eight weeks before pandemic-related lockdowns started, in the first eight weeks of pandemic-related lockdowns, employees worked nearly 49 minutes longer per day on average and sent about 8 percent more emails after business hours. The study was conducted by researchers from the Harvard Business School and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in August 2020. Forty-nine percent of respondents reported feeling at least somewhat burned out, according to an April 2021 McKinsey report that included survey data from more 5,043 full-time employees. And evidence indeed indicates that when work permeates our lives, our well-being takes a hit. A study published in July 2018 in the journal Academy Management Proceedings found that workers who were expected to check email at all times of day reported lower levels of health and well-being, and less satisfaction in their relationship with their significant others in survey responses. Their partners seem to have suffered some of the same costs, according to survey responses from the employee’s partner. The study surveyed 142 full-time employees and their significant others.Technology and flexible work schedules have become synonymous with working all the time, Pfeffer says. “We’ve come to take for granted stuff that is just weird.” If you own a race horse and don’t give that horse time off to rest and recover, there would be repercussions, he says, adding: “If I did that to a person, nobody would care very much.”

To Change the Culture We Need to Start Talking About It

Our reality isn’t totally bleak. According to Carter, “We can decide to set the boundaries we need. We can change our culture. We change our culture all the time — that’s what we do as humans." But we need to do a lot to move the needle, and much of it needs to come from the top down, both Carter and Pfeffer say. Here is what they suggest as the terms of engagement:

Use Technology in Smarter Ways

It’s not just a matter of willpower and not frequently checking our devices, especially since our brains are hardwired to want the social information that emails and other notifications bring, Carter says. That alert might mean you received an invitation from a friend or good feedback from your boss — or it might be an ad from Pottery Barn. You want to know about the good news, so you keep checking, she explains. “It’s like gambling.” We need spaces where we don’t — and can’t — check our phones, she says. Start by reinforcing the norm to not have phones at the dinner table, during family time, or during meetings, or to limit email and social media checking to scheduled times during the day. If you’re working from home and can’t move to a new physical space after work where you don’t check email or phone alerts, decide on a time to turn them off for the day or stop checking. RELATED: Is Social Media Busting or Boosting Our Stress? The technology itself isn’t good or bad. Email, social media, and instant messaging are tools that we need to learn to use more effectively. A hammer can be essential for certain tasks, Carter says, “But you wouldn’t walk around all day banging it away at everything.”

Establish Boundaries and Predictable Time Off

There used to be physical and time boundaries that helped keep work and life apart, Carter says. We need to reinstate boundaries that both employers and employees respect. “People need predictable time off work,” Carter says. If you’re a remote worker and a commute no longer separates work from home, pick a routine to fill that time. “I have dogs that need to go out around 5:45 p.m., so I need to close my computer at that time,” Carter says. Other good options to end your workday and separate the rest of the evening include: a workout, a scheduled exercise class, or taking a walk. Adding to the problem is “on-demand” scheduling, which Pfeffer says is increasingly used by retailers and other companies that employ hourly workers. Sophisticated algorithms create the schedule based on predictions of when that store might be busy. Employees might know their schedule a week ahead of time or two days ahead. The irregularity makes time off difficult to plan. While there are many of these structural problems that need to be fixed, Pfeffer says, you can act in your own behalf now by using the vacation days you already have — and staying logged off all devices and platforms during that time. RELATED: Why Taking Time Off Is Good for Your Health

A ' Flexible Schedule' Doesn t Mean Always Working

Working for a company that allows flexible hours might mean that you can leave the office (or home office) at 3 p.m. for a doctor’s appointment, as long as you can log those last couple of hours of work from home, says Rebecca Zucker, an executive coach and partner at Next Step Partners, a leadership development firm in San Francisco. It doesn’t mean that you need to be available all night long. You need to establish with your colleagues what they should expect from you, Zucker says. “If you are replying to email at 10 p.m. or midnight, you are developing the expectation that you’re available at that time,” she says. As the world is opening back up, routines are changing once again. “Frame that as an opportunity for yourself,” advises Carter. “Set yourself boundaries and figure out what your new best practices are.”

Have the Tough Productive Conversation With Our Employers

How do you set the boundaries you want your colleagues to respect when you’re not in the corner office? “You set a mutually beneficial goal that both parties can get behind,” Zucker says, such as recognizing that both you and your manager want to meet monthly deadlines, and that it helps everyone to do it in a way that’s sustainable, which means you don’t feel as if you’re always working. When having that conversation, acknowledge good intentions behind those actions, and express the effect those actions have on you, she adds. Your manager may email at 11 p.m. because she wants to get a particular task off her plate, but she may not expect you to necessarily answer at all hours of the night, Zucker says.

Societal Changes Need to Happen From the Top Down Too

Pfeffer says most individual employees are in a tough spot when it comes to work-life balance. He says the best-case scenario when you’re in a position where you feel overloaded by work and home is to quit that job and find an employer that will treat you better. But for most people, that’s not a realistic option, he adds. “Employers have a responsibility to steward their human resources just like they worry about recycling, endangered species, and other societal problems,” Pfeffer says. That means companies should make sure that employee responsibilities reasonably fit into working hours, as well as giving employees paid time off and access to high quality health insurance. “If we’re serious about solving the problem,” Pfeffer says, “employers need to do their part, too.” With additional reporting by Kate Lucey. NEWSLETTERS

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